USA > Connecticut > The Connecticut River and the valley of the Connecticut, three hundred and fifty miles from mountain to sea; historical and descriptive > Part 5
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36
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Roger Ludlow had now become as ardent for removal as he had been against it, and he headed the Dorchester emi- gration, as we have seen. His abrupt change of attitude was brought about, it is assumed, through his loss of the governorship in the May election, to which as deputy he was in the direct line. From this moment he was a power- ful Connecticut leader, and became a foremost figure in the infant colony on the River banks.
With the order giving the Dorchester people leave to go cognizance was taken of the Massachusetts jurisdiction over the River country. This appears in a grant of three pieces (cannon) to the communities removing "to fortify themselves withal."
At the court's September sitting the first step for gov: ernment on the River was taken through an order empower- ing any Bay magistrate to swear a constable for any River plantation. At the same time further provision for defence was made. It was ordered that two drakes and powder and shot be loaned the settlers from the stock of the towns from which the emigration was making. Finally, in the following March (1636) the court provided a provisional government for the plantations.
This was a government by commission ; the commis- sioners named to "govern the people of Connecticut for the space of a year now next coming." In the "exempli- fication " of this instrument we see how intimately the Bay men associated themselves in the business with the Lords and Gentlemen, and endeavored to guard their assumed interests in the River :
" Whereas, upon some reason and grounds there are to remove from this our commonwealth and body of the Massachusetts in America, divers of our loving friends, neighbours, freemen, and mem- bers of New Towne, Dorchester, Watertown, and other places, who
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are resolved to transplant themselves and their estates unto the River of Connecticut, there to reside and inhabit, and to this end divers are there already, and divers others shortly to go, we, in this present Court assembled, on the behalf of our said members, and John Winthrop Jun.r Esq.r, Governor, appointed by certain noble personages and men of quality interested in the said river, which [sic ] are yet in England, on their behalf, have had a serious consid- eration there[on ], and think it meet that where there are a people to sit down and cohabit there will follow, upon occasion, some cause of difference, as also divers misdemeanors, which will require a speedy address ; and in regard of the distance of the place this state and gov- ernment cannot take notice of the same as to apply timely remedy, or to dispense equal justice to them and their affairs as may be desired ; and in regard the said noble personages and men of quality have some- thing engaged themselves and their estates in the planting of the said river, and by virtue of a patent do require jurisdiction of the said place and people, and neither the minds of the said personages (they being sent unto) are as yet known, nor any manner of govern- ment is yet agreed on, and there being a necessity, as aforesaid, that some present government may be observed, we therefore think meet, and so order, that Roger Ludlowe Esq., William Pynchon Esqr, John Steele, William Swaine, Henry Smyth, William Phe[lpes], William Westwood, and Andrew Ward, or the greater part of them, shall have full power and authority " to act in such capacity.
If within the year a " mutual and settled " government were formed the commission was to be recalled. But such government must be " condescended into by and with the good liking and consent of the said noble personages or their agent," as well as the Bay Colony, without prejudice to the interest of the Lords and Gentlemen "in the said river and confines thereof within their several limits." Three of the eight commissioners, Steele, Westwood, and Ward, were New Newtown (Hartford) men; Ludlow and Phelps were New Dorchester (Windsor) men; Swayne and Smyth were of the New Watertown (Wethersfield) ; and Pynchon alone stood for Agawam (Springfield). All of
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the eight were men of consequence. Ward of Hartford was an ancestor of Aaron Burr, and from him Henry Ward Beecher got his middle name.
With a provisional government thus arranged by Mas- sachusetts the Hookerites at length prepared for their de- parture. No reversal of the negative vote of the magis- trates on their petition of September, 1634, appears to have been made. Nor is there record of any further action at a subsequent General Court. Probably, as historians have observed, the liberty given in general terms in the order of May, 1634, was held to be sufficient. Perhaps the majority of the magistrates now sitting were more friendly than the previous body to the move, but were shy of a vote of rec- ord, deeming exclusion from the court minutes of reference to dispersions most prudent, as in the former case of the great debate and negative action. At all events the Hookerites moved away tranquilly, and at peace with the Bay leaders. Haynes did not go at this time, but followed shortly, after he had cleared the way for his successor in the Bay governorship, young Sir Harry Vane.
Whether Hooker and Haynes and the others in their confidence contemplated from the start the setting up of a government of their own, is purely a matter of speculation. If they did they kept their hopes to themselves while they were getting their new house in order.
The provisional government continued serenely through its year, affairs moving without jar. Six public courts convened within the term. All of them were held in the plantations on the west side of the River, although Agawam was within the fold. Four met at Newtown, and one each at New Dorchester and New Watertown. Pynchon was present at only one of the six. Ludlow was a master-
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spirit at all. At the last sitting, in Newtown, February 27, 1637, the present names of the west-side settlements were adopted, -" Hateford Town " for Newtown, "Wy- thersfeild " for Watertown, and "Windsor" for Dorchester. In this action some writers see the first step toward with- drawal from the Bay jurisdiction. Hartford was named for the English Hertford, in compliment, some say, to Samuel Stone, the minister with Hooker, whose birthplace it was; others say to Haynes, whose ancestors were of Hertfordshire. Wethersfield was called after the town in old Essex from the neighborhood of which came John Tal- cott, a first proprietor and leader in the new settlement. Windsor was obviously suggested by the home of the Eng- lish sovereigns.
The transition to the independent government was without friction. In its earlier stages it was a sort of natural evolution. The commissioners constituting the old order passed into the new. Five of them, with a single new member, composed the first court held after the expiration of the Massachusetts commission. This sat at Newtown (Hartford), March 28, 1637. The new member was Thomas Welles of Newtown, said by tradition to have been the private secretary of Lord Say and Sele before coming out to America. Twenty years later he was a governor of Connecticut. Welles took the place of William Westwood in the court, but how he was chosen does not appear. The next court was by its composition a definite step nearer independent government, and was distinctly a representa- tive body. It was a General Court, in which the commis- sioners composing the previous court sat with deputies, or committees, as they were termed, elected by the freemen in each plantation. Although organized primarily to meet an emergency, - arising from the hostility of the Pequots,
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- it fixed itself as a permanent institution in the adoption of this order at the finish of its business: "the General Court now in being shall be dissolved, and there is no more attendance of the members thereof to be expected except they be chosen in the next General Court." It convened at Newtown on the first day of May, 1637, and continued in existence till February 9, 1637-8. It declared offensive war against the Pequots, and prepared for the campaign. It levied men for the service from the plantations, provided for provisioning them, impressed Mr. Pynchon's shallop for " the design," and saw the grim business through. Two months after its adjournment, or on April 5, 1638, a new General Court, similarly constituted, came in, the towns electing their committees in the interim. In this General Court Agawam was represented the same as the other plantations. But its magistrates and committee men, Mr. Pynchon and three others, attended only the first sitting; withdrawing, perhaps, upon the censure of Mr. Pynchon in connection with a corn contract. This was conveyed in an order imposing upon him a fine of "forty bushels of corn for the public," for failing to be " so careful to promote the public good in the trade of corn as he was bound to do," in carrying out a contract to supply the west side towns with this commodity.
The plan of government was now maturing, and this court is supposed to have been entrusted with the framing of it. At an adjourned session on the last day of May, Mr. Hooker prepared the way in his epoch-making sermon be- fore the body. This was the discourse in which he enun- ciated the fundamentals that should be embodied in the Constitution, grounded on his explicit declaration that "the choice of public magistrates belongs to the people of God's own allowance," because "the foundation of authority is
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laid firstly in the consent of the people." Only the heads of this discourse are extant, but these sufficiently disclose its import. They are preserved in a shorthand abstract in a manuscript note-book of Henry Wolcott, Jr., of Windsor, now in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society, for the successful deciphering of which history is indebted to J. Hammond Trumbull.
Seven months after the May sitting the first of all written constitutions of representative government was completed. Then, on the fourteenth of January, 1638-9, deputies from the towns, assembled in convention at Hart- ford, adopted the instrument as the " Fundamental Orders of Connecticut." This remarkable early seventeenth cen- tury paper, the joint work presumably of Hooker, Haynes, and Ludlow, fashioned, it is pleasant to imagine, in Hooker's Hartford study overlooking our River, stands unique among American documents in being not only the " first written constitution known to history that created a government," but the precedent for the Constitution of the United States a century and a half after. It made no allusion to any source of authority whatever except the towns themselves. It was silent as to any duty to the British or any other crown. As John Fiske further em- phasises, it " created a state which was really a tiny federal republic, and it recognized the principle of federal equality by equality of representation among the towns, while at the same time it recognized popular sovereignty by electing its governor and its upper house by a plurality vote, and it conferred upon the General Court only such powers as were expressly granted." It gave the suffrage without ecclesi- astical restrictions, to all the freemen admitted to the towns who had taken the oath of fidelity. The requisite for free- manship was simply a majority vote for admittance, by the
Quiet Life by the River's Side.
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inhabitants of the town in town meeting. Surely, as Fiske exclaims, and with pride as a Connecticut River man, for he was born at Hartford, " surely this was the true birth of American democracy and the Connecticut Valley was its birthplace !"
On the second Thursday of April following this mo- mentous birth the freemen of the three west-side River towns again convened at Hartford, at a general meeting, and completed their establishment with the election of their chief magistrates. Hooker again preached, delivering the initial Connecticut "Election Sermon." With John Haynes as governor were chosen six others "to assist in the mag- istracy." Of the six, Roger Ludlow was chosen deputy governor, Edward Hopkins secretary, and Thomas Welles treasurer. The others were George Wyllys, John Webster, and William Phelps. All were foremost men in the three communities. Each, with the exception of Ludlow and Phelps, occupied the governorship in after years. Ludlow and Phelps had served continuously from the establishment of the provisional government. The magistrates consti- tuted the upper house of the General Court.
The secession of the three River towns was now fully established. Agawam had withdrawn from the alliance and had set up a provisional government of her own. A month after the establishment of the Connecticut Consti- tution her inhabitants entered into a compact with the proviso that "by God's good providence " they found themselves "fallen into the line of the Massachusetts ju- risdiction," making Pynchon their sole magistrate. The Hartford government, however, continued jurisdiction over the plantation, and this, with other proceedings, gave rise to a sharp correspondence between the Bay and the River
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leaders. The Bay men had at first been willing that Agawam " should have fallen into the Connecticut govern- ment "; but having come into conflict with the River men over the articles for the proposed confederation of the col- onies, and the River men holding fast to their amendments, the Bay men resolved to " stand upon " their rights and keep Agawam in their jurisdiction. It seems to have been admitted that Agawam lay within the vaguely defined western bound of the Massachusetts patent. But the Con- necticut men justified their course on the action of Agawam in participating in the general election of the spring of 1638. At that election " the committees from the town of Agawam came in with other towns and chose their magis- trates, installed them into their government, took oath of them for the execution of justice according to God, and engaged themselves to submit to this government, and the execution of justice by their means, and dispensed by the authority which they put upon them by choice. ... If Mr. Pynchon can devise ways to make his oath bind him when he will, and loose him when he list; if he can tell how, in faithfulness, to engage himself in a civil covenant and combination (for that he did by his committees by his act), and yet can cast it away at his pleasure, before he give in sufficient warrant more than his own word and will, he must find a law in Agawam for it; for it is written in no law or gospel that ever I read."
Thus wrote Thomas Hooker in that illuminating letter to John Winthrop, senior, in the autumn of 1638, which lay in the archives of Massachusetts unopened and unknown to the historians till its discovery by Dr. Trumbull less than half a century ago, - the most valuable of the several im- portant " finds " of this foremost of Connecticut historical scholars, which have made necessary the rewriting of more
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than one passage of our colonial history. It is luminous, especially in the revelation it makes upon another signifi- cant matter, - the attitude at the time that Hooker wrote of some of the Bay partisans, - " multitudes " of them is his term, - toward the Connecticut establishment, and their persistent efforts to check emigration to the River towns. Withal in vitality of expression it is a colonial classic, as witness these extracts : .
I confess that my head grows gray and my eyes dim, yet I am sometimes in the watch-tower; and if the quære be, Watchman, what is the night, as the prophet speaks, I shall tell you what I have observed, and shall be bold to leave my complaints in your bosom, of what is beyond question .... What I shall write are not forged imag- inations and suppositions carved out of men's conceits, but that which is reported and cried openly and carried by sea and land. Secondly, my aim is not at any person, nor intendment to charge any particu- lar with you ; because it is the common trade that is driven among multitudes with you, and with which the heads and hearts of passen- gers come loaded hither, and that with grief and wonderment; and the conclusion which is arrived at from these reproaches and prac- tices is this, that we are a forlorn people, not worthy to be succored with company and so neither with support.
I will particularize. If enquire be, What be the people of Connecticut ? the reply is, Alas, poor rash-headed creatures, they rushed themselves into a war with the heathen [the Pequot War of 1637], and so had we not rescued them at so many hundred charges, they had been utterly undone. In all which you know there is not a true sentence ; for we did not rush into the war; and the Lord himself did rescue before friends.
If after much search made for the settling of the people and nothing suitable found to their desires but toward Connecticut; if yet then they will needs go from the Bay, go any whither, be any where, choose any place, any patent - Narragansett, Plymouth, - only go not to Connecticut. We hear and bear.
Immediately after the winter, because there was likelihood multitudes would come over, and lest any should desire to come hither, then there is a lamentable cry raised, that all their cows at
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Connecticut are dead, and that I had lost nine and only one left and that was not likely to live (when I never had but eight and they never did better than last year). We hear still and bear.
And lest haply some men should be encouraged to come be- cause of any subsistence and continuance here, then the rumour is noised that I am weary of my station ; or if I did know whither to go, or my people what way to take, we would never abide : where- as such impudent forgery is scant found in hell ; for I profess I know not a member of my congregation but sits down well apayd with his portion, and for myself, I have said what now I write : if I was to choose I would be where I am.
But notwithstanding all this the matter is not sure, and there is some fear that some men will come toward Connecticut when ships come over; either some have related the nature of the place or some friends invited them ; and therefore care must be taken, and is by this generation, as soon as any ship arrives, that persons haste presently to board them, and when no occasion is offered or question propounded for Connecticut, then their pity to their countrymen is such that they cannot but speak the truth : Alas, do you think to go to Connecticut ? Why do you long to be undone ? If you do not, bless yourself from thence ; their upland will bear no corn, their meadows nothing but weeds, and the people are almost all starved. Sill we hear and bear.
But may be these sudden expressions will be taken as words of course, and therefore vanish away when once spoken. Let it there- fore be provided that the innkeepers entertain their guests with in- vectives against Connecticut, and those are set on with the salt, and go off with the voyder. If any hear and stay, then they are wel- comed ; but if these reports cannot stop a man's proceeding from making trial, they look at him as a Turk, or as a man scant worthy to live. Still we hear and bear.
That's in New England : but send over a watch a little into Old England ; and go we there to the Exchange, the very like trade is driven by persons which come from you, as though there was a resolved correspondence held in this particular; as the master and merchant who came this last year to Seabrook Fort related, even to my amazement, there is a tongue-battle fought upon the Exchange
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by all the plots that can be forged to keep passengers from coming, or to hinder any from sending a vessel to Connecticut, as proclaimed an utter impossibility.
Sir, he wants a nostril that feels not and scents not a schismat- ical spirit in such a framer of falsifying relations to gratify some persons, and satisfy their own ends. Do these things argue brotherly love ? Do these issue from spirits that either pity the necessities of their brethren, or would that the work of God should prosper in their hands ? or rather argue the quite contrary. If these be the ways of God, or that the blessing of God do follow them, I never preached God's ways nor knew what belonged to them. . .. Worthy Sir, these are not jealousies which we needlessly raise ; they are realities which passengers daily relate, we hear and bear ; and I leave them in your bosom ; only I confess I count it my duty, and I do privately and publicly pray against such wickedness; and the Lord hath wont to hear the prayer of the despised.
In time the relations between the two colonies became more amicable, and differences were settled without rancor. The territory of Agawam was at length formally confirmed as within the Bay patent, and she took her place as a Massachusetts town. She had become Springfield in 1641, taking the name of the English town from which Pynchon came. The New England Confederacy became successfully established in 1643. Hooker and Winthrop, notwithstand- ing their sharp correspondence, remained steadfastly stanch friends. . And when in 1647 Hooker died at his Hartford home, Winthrop wrote of him: " ... who for piety, pru- dence, wisdom, zeal, learning, and what else might make him serviceable in the place and time he lived in, might be compared with men of greatest note; and he shall need no other praise : the fruits of his labours in both Englands shall preserve an honourable and happy remembrance of him forever."
V The Fall of the House of Hope
Troubled Life of the Dutch among their English Neighbors - Petty Aggres- sions on Both Sides - De Vries's Observations in 1639 - His Dinner-table Talk with Governor Haynes - A Pleasant Episode of his Visit - Comman- der Provoost's Strenuous Five Years - A Dramatic Scene at the Fort - Diplomatic Gysbert op Dyck - Peter Stuyvesant at Hartford - The Hart- ford Treaty of 1650 - A brief " Happy Peace" - Captain John Underhill upon the Scene - He seizes the House of Hope - End of Dutch Occupation.
T YO the post of the House of Hope the Dutch clung for fifteen years after the establishment of the Connecti- cut colony. They were in almost constant broils with their English neighbors. Their domain was repeatedly encroached upon ; their field-hands were harassed; their tempers ruffled by all sorts of petty annoyances : the object of all apparently being to drive them from the Valley. They retaliated from time to time, giving the English in their turn just cause for complaint, and they protested and threatened much. Yet they held back from open war- fare, restrained, perhaps, by reason of their weakness, for they remained a small and feeble body in an aggressive community, and were backed by the New Netherland government only by words in lieu of men.
The English aggressions became most pronounced im- mediately upon the setting up of the new colony. In June of 1639, only two months after the first inaugura- tion, the worthy David Pieterzen de Vries, master of artil- lery in the service of Holland, and an industrious planter of colonies, visited the fort, coming in his yacht on a sum-
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mer cruise from New Amsterdam, and found the commis- sary thus early warm over the situation. The garrison then consisted of only fourteen or fifteen soldiers with the commissary, Gysbert op Dyck. Hartford town was seen to be well started within the Dutch domain, in spite of Op Dyck's protest, and had already " a fine church and over a hundred houses." Some of the English had begun to plow up the reserved lands about the redoubt in defiance of the Dutch soldiers, and when the latter attempted to interfere had " cudgelled " them. Appealed to by Op Dyck, De Vries went into the town, and presented himself to Governor Haynes. He was graciously received and invited to dinner at the governor's house. At the table the con- versation turned upon the Dutch grievances. "I told him," De Vries narrates in his journal, " that it was wrong to take by force the company's land which it had bought and paid for. He answered that the lands were lying idle ; that though we had been there many years we had done scarcely anything; that it was a sin to let such rich land which produced such fine corn lie uncultivated; and that they had already built three towns upon this River in a fine country." Whether these arguments satisfied De Vries does not appear ; but here the record ends, and Op Dyck's tribulations continued as before.
In his narrative of this visit, which lasted nearly a week, De Vries gives us a sketch of the situation of the House of Hope as it then appeared; and he relates an anecdote which illustrates the life of the young River town, his own cleverness in diplomacy, and the tender- heartedness of the colonial dames of that early day.
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